In a letter, John von Neumann summarizes the Monte Carlo method, which he developed with Stanislaw Ulam: a way to solve otherwise intractable problems (or problems difficult to solve in a timely manner) with the laws of chance. A first use case is the diffusion
The British Foreign Secretary says Britain intends to withdraw from Palestine, leaving the country’s future status to the United Nations.
Paris. The peace treaty is signed: Italy cedes Briga and Tenda to France, most of Venezia Giulia to Yugoslavia, Rhodes and the Dodecanese to Greece, and loses all its colonies. De Gasperi had traveled to the United States the month before, not at the invitation
Nuremberg Trials Verdict: 7 Innocent, 7 Imprisoned, 11 Hanged (Goering Commits Suicide with Cyanide the Day Before Execution)
Referendum: Italy becomes a Republic, and Enrico De Nicola becomes its first president.
The OKB-1 Design Bureau is founded in the Soviet Union. It is the original design bureau of Sergei Korolev, a giant of cosmonautics, who designed the R-7, Vostok, Voskhod, Soyuz, N-1, and Zenit systems. Korolev always designed ICBMs with space missions in mind. He wasn’t
Los Alamos. Edward Teller, in a then-secret meeting, reports on the ENIAC computer’s lengthy calculations on his hydrogen bomb (The Super), demonstrating its feasibility. ENIAC was extremely inefficient: only 5% of its time could be spent on actual calculations, while the remainder had to be
First agreements, known as UKUSA, for the broad sharing of intelligence material, particularly signals intelligence. The participating countries are the UK, USA, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. An initial global database network is developed, first on IBM mainframes and then with Cray supercomputers.
Perón elected in Argentina. Juan Domingo Perón, Argentina’s controversial former vice president, is elected president. He had been imprisoned the year before, but the appeals of workers and his charismatic wife, Eva Duarte de Perón, had won him his freedom. As president, Perón pursued a
Grand Rapids, Michigan, becomes the first city in the world to have its water supply fluoridated. Today, more than half of Americans drink fluoridated water, making the United States one of the most fluoridated populations in the world. The initial trial in Grand Rapids, adding
Linus Pauling proves that anemia is a disease caused by a defect in the hemoglobin molecule; this is the first description of a molecular disease.
A million punch cards with monstrous equations are fed to the ENIAC computer to validate Teller’s H-bomb project (the Super). The computer will prove it cannot work, and the project will be masterminded by Polish refugee Stanislaw Ulam.
Lamsdorf German detention camp in Lambinowice, Poland. Between 1945 and 1946, 6,488 prisoners died, according to Heinz Esser’s estimates, while other Polish studies estimate 1,500 deaths, 1,462 of whom are known by name. Then, in October 1945, a terrible fire broke out in one of
The end of the war in Europe did not completely end the massacres. In Belgium, 265 collaborators were killed, in the Netherlands about 100, in France about 9,000, and in Italy between 12,000 and 20,000 (on Liberation Day alone, 500 people were killed in Milan
The Indianapolis Motor Speedway, which was falling into disrepair, is back in action.
Two Japanese Navy I-400 and I-401-class supersubmarines were captured in the Pacific Ocean by the Americans; their mission was to release rats and insects infected with cholera, bubonic plague, and typhus off American cities on the West Coast; the mission was never completed.
China. American Ambassador Patrick Hurley arranges a meeting between Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-Shek and Communist leader Mao Zedong in Chongqing, the Nationalist capital. The two leaders attend diligently, but hostilities resume immediately after the meeting.
Gen. MacArthur has full power to reinvent postwar Japan (including the constitution).
Germany and Russia had horrific death rates during World War II. But the average figure for the entire 20th century yields values of 0.16%/year (Germany) and 0.15%/year (Russia), compared to 0.03%/year for Japan and, in Napoleon’s 19th century, 0.07%/year for France. These figures pale in
Vietnam. Hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese gather in Saigon to listen to Ho Chi Minh’s declaration of independence from the French, broadcast on the radio from Hanoi.
We are reborn and with us a new species of life form is born: the computer.
Japan’s surrender on the battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay: End of World War II. 60 million dead: >30 million Russia, 13 million China, 6 million Poland, 6 million Germany (4.5 million soldiers and 1.5 million civilians), 2 million Japan (0.4 million civilians), 0.3 Italy, USA
Only now has the United States produced enough plutonium to arm a third plutonium atomic bomb (the first was Trinity and the second was Nagasaki).
Romania. Petru Groza’s communists, after taking over the country’s political government and controlling its security forces, dismantled the other two pillars of democratic society: a free press and an independent judiciary. Over 1,000 judges were dismissed and replaced with Communist Party officials.
Japan. The Japanese authorities were terrified that American soldiers might do to Japanese women what their own soldiers had done in the occupied territories. Three days after the surrender, the Ministry of the Interior ordered all police officers to organize “comfort services” for the Allied
The Red Army, despite the Japanese capitulation, occupies the Kurii Islands north of Hokkaido and the Soviet government annexes them.
The US government releases the official report on the Manhattan Project: the Smyth Report.
American Robert Goddard died without justice for his inventions on liquid-fueled rockets and their gyroscope-based control. In 1950, his family sued the U.S. government for this, and in 1960, the government paid the Goddard family $1 million in compensation.
12:01 p.m., Japan time: Plutonium Fission Bomb (Fat Man) dropped on Nagasaki: 20,000 dead. The city of Nagasaki is bombed by a B-29 “Bockascar” by the crew of another B-29, “The Great Artiste,” only after flying in vain over Kokura, which was covered by clouds.
Military strategist Bernard Brodie stops to buy a copy of the New York Times where he learns of the atomic bomb explosion on Hiroshima and declares: “Everything I have written is obsolete.”
Hiroshima. The only doctor in Tokyo studying nuclear physics, Taro Takemi, is in Hiroshima, where, using a simple but effective method involving a radioscope, he determines that the explosion was nuclear in nature. The news is immediately communicated to the Emperor. If it is true
Hiroshima. The explosion that obliterated the city and killed 80,000 people was caused by the fission of 0.7 grams of uranium U-235, as 98.67% of the uranium in the bomb disintegrated before it became supercritical. This is about the weight of a dime.
8:15:17 a.m. Japan time: Uranium Fission Nuclear Bomb (Little Boy) dropped on Hiroshima, killing 80,000. It is dropped by the B-29 Enola Gay after a 5:30 flight from Tinian Island, Saipan. The commander and pilot is Paul Tibbets.
Tinian Island, Western Pacific Ocean. Parts for three nuclear implosion bombs (with plutonium charges) arrive on the island. One, unarmed, will be dropped into the Pacific on August 8th as a test; another is prepared the following day and will be dropped on Nagasaki; and
The cruiser Indianapolis, which delivered the atomic bomb for the Enola Gay, was sunk by a Japanese submarine. The delivery operation was top secret, which led to misunderstandings and problems in the rescue operation, which only found the 316 survivors (of 1,199) on August 2.
Japan rejects the Potsdam Declaration, thus laying the groundwork, according to American strategy, for the dropping of atomic bombs on its metropolitan territory.
The cruiser Indianapolis delivers the atomic bomb to Tinian Harbor. It will be loaded onto the Enola Gay. The operation is top secret and therefore unguarded. On the return voyage, the ship is sunk by a Japanese submarine.
China, the United States, and Great Britain draft the Potsdam Declaration, demanding Japan’s immediate unconditional surrender or face complete and utter destruction.
President Truman addressed Stalin with, “We have a new weapon, endowed with uncommon destructive force.” He mistakenly assumed Stalin didn’t understand the meaning of that phrase. Instead, Stalin ordered the effort to build nuclear weapons to be accelerated and entrusted Beria, head of the secret
In Potsdam, Stalin is informed by Truman of the successful test of the atomic bomb, the Soviet dictator reacts happily to the news, but does not ask questions about the nature of the new technology.
B-29s of the 509th Composite Group (which would later bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki) flew 51 sorties over Japan with Pumpkin Bombs, or bombs the same size and weight as the Fat Man dropped on Nagasaki, filled with conventional explosives. The sorties were for training purposes
Potsdam Conference (between Germany and Poland): Truman, Churchill and Stalin urge Japan to surrender
Potsdam (Berlin). Stalin has asked to postpone the meeting with Churchill and Truman by a day because he is not feeling well. Truman, who has just learned of the success of the Trinity test, uses the day to visit the ruins of Berlin. In his
Monday afternoon. Manhattan Project scientists John Magee and Joseph Hirschfelder drive along the path of the radioactive cloud. At a convenience store at an intersection, an elderly gentleman exclaims when he sees them: “You boys must have been up to something this morning: the sun
A span of exactly 24 years separates two defining events of the 20th century: the first nuclear explosion in history and the launch of Apollo 11 to the Moon. Two events made possible by two contradictory, and therefore truly characteristic, figures of the short century:
Jornada del Muerto, New Mexico. After the bomb explodes, Richard Feymman is probably the only person present to watch the explosion directly with the naked eye, through only the window of the jeep. Indeed, he reasons, if it’s neutrons, gamma rays, or X-rays that are
Jornada del Muerto, New Mexico. Robert Oppenheimer, head of the Manhattan Project, said of the moments after the bomb exploded: “We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people remained silent.” He then recalled that
First Nuclear Bomb at Alamagordo (New Mexico): “Trinity”, detonation from a 32m tower, 21Kton, leaves a crater 3m deep and 335m wide
Saturday. Los Alamos, New Mexico. Captain James F. Nolan and Major Robert R. Furman transport the Hiroshima bomb uranium to Albuquerque, from where it will be transferred first to San Francisco, before embarking on the Indianapolis on Monday, July 16 (the day of the Trinity
Soviet Union. Alexander Solzhenitsyn is read his sentence by the NKVD: eight years in a correctional camp. He exclaims, “But this is terrible! Eight years!!! Why?” His words ring hollow and useless. Other acquaintances of his have received 25 years (Stalin’s quarter). After some hesitation,
The Carabinieri of Campogalliano were forced to leave the barracks due to a hostile demonstration organised in the square in front
The first Nazi CLASS 21 submarine sets sail; with its great autonomy and underwater speed it is the first true submarine in the world, the U-boats, in fact, had to often resurface becoming visible to radar, and were therefore considered submarines, not submarines
9pm: 378 German soldiers, including 30 officers and 300 soldiers from the Republic of Salò, were taken to S. Eufemia in Modena.
Around 11:00 a.m.: An American tank, on the instructions of a partisan, is brought to Ponte Alto in Modena; hundreds of Germans stationed in San Cataldo will surrender to the Americans stationed there, thanks to the mediation of the parish priest of San Cataldo.
9:00 a.m.: A column of the American 5th Army arrives at Nonantola without passing through Modena; it is followed by the British 8th Army.
The Poles and the 34th American Division take Bologna. The liberation of northern Italian cities and the entry of Allied soldiers were usually preceded by popular uprisings coordinated by the Allies with the partisan commanders, but this did not happen in Bologna. Ena Frazoni, a
The last Allied bombing raid on Modena: the Santa Chiara barracks on Rua Muro were hit.
The US 9th Army reaches the Elbe, only 80 km from Berlin; the American commander Simpson asks Eisenhower to be able to attempt a sortie towards Berlin, only 1 day away; Eisenhower denies permission.
Gothic Line: Brazilian FEB troops conquer Montese, in the Province of Modena.